Whu? Bill O'Reilly does a respectably good interview with... Marilyn Manson! This is surprising on so many levels. And the content, superb. Well worth the viewing. [video link] via Cyberdork via Reddit
posted by five fresh fish
on Feb 28, 2007 -
63 comments

Blacklisted! The bankruptcy of the liberal Air America Radio Network is old news. What's new is a leaked ABC memo to affiliates (.pdf original) listing 90 corporations and major advertisers that stipulated that their ads not be aired during the broadcast of Air America content.
Is there any hope that radio or television news in the United States can report stories that do not uniformly support the goals and viewpoints of the S&P 500?
There are of course, alternative models. Is it time for a PBS Newschanel?
posted by washburn
on Nov 4, 2006 -
58 comments

Stewart Lee of 'Jerry Springer the Opera' fame discusses the rise of religious intolerance to comments the believer disagree's with. Interesting in that this is not just the usual freedom loving athiest vs. god loving believers, but that we also have religious people arguing that God can survive some satire and deploring the fundamentalist intolerance of dissent. Prt 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
posted by Gratishades
on Sep 25, 2006 -
32 comments

Raed Jarrar was coming home from Jordan wearing a T-shirt with the phrase "We will not be silent" in Arabic script and English. Other JetBlue passengers who could not read the Arabic were "offended" and she was apprehended by security and asked to replace it. She also had her seat changed to the back of the plane. Variations on T-shirt airline censorship have happened before, but, taken to extremes, the fear of foreign language has spawned some unpleasant nights. Where is the line drawn? And where is the path to multicultural reconciliation?
posted by ed
on Aug 21, 2006 -
70 comments

This comes hot on the heels of a government-ordered media blackout on Article 11, a coalition of NGOs dedicated to upholding the principles of Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution, about freedom of religion, after several protests claiming Article 11 to be anti-Muslim and confusing it with the now-defunct Interfaith Comission Initiative, which aimed to be a body of people of different faiths raising awareness about diversity of religion and working together on religious issues.

Blogspot, Geocities, and TypePad blocked in India. Indian ISPs, who had been ordered by the Indian government to block certain
blogs, have blocked the entire blogspot.com, geocities.com, and typepad.com
(by IP), rendering hundreds of thousands of blogs inaccessible in India. The block
was ordered by the government apparently because terrorists were using blogs to
co-ordinate their activities. Indian bloggers, upset
at the blanket ban, have started
a wiki to keep track of the situation. They have also created a mailing
list to discuss the issue. Some prominent
Indian bloggers are also
tracking updates. Indian laws require
ISPs to install filtering equipment and follow government orders to block sites,
or the can lose their licence to operate. This is not the first time such an
incident has occurred. In 2003, the government ordered a block on a Yahoo group
that was supposedly anti-national. Indian ISPs ended up blocking
Yahoo Groups completely. India's recently introduced Right-to-Information
Act, which many bloggers are planning to use, gives the government 30
days to respond to an RTI request. In the interim, despite national
and international coverage of the issue from the likes of New York Times
(linked earlier), Washington
Post, CNN, New
Statesman, and WSJ
(paid reg. required), these major blogging sites remain blocked.
posted by madman
on Jul 19, 2006 -
37 comments

What is a wikipedian? Every so often a Wikipedian comes to their senses, sees a problem with the way things are operating, and tries to do something about it. Tired of seeing articles carelessly deleted, censored, and then cherry picked as to what is "encyclopedic enough", several Wikipedia members formed "Wikipedians against censorship".
posted by PeterMcDermott
on Apr 17, 2006 -
40 comments

New Jersey Assemblyman Peter Biondi didn't like that he and his friends are getting flamed on the news portal NJ.com by people named, inter alia, "frenchtoast2." So he introduced a bill, and that bill would require "operators of interactive computer services" to make members' real names available upon demand, and allow content providers to be sued for contributory defamation. And he saw that this was good. And that was the first day.
posted by Saucy Intruder
on Mar 7, 2006 -
35 comments

Google Images Censored in China A picture says 1000 words, and Google.cn is censoring them all. Check out the side-by-side screens of a search for "tiananmen+square" in Google.com and Google.cn images. Looks like a nice place, with little historical significance. You can try the search yourself. The text on the bottom left is the censorship disclaimer. Very different than our results. A far cry from Google's claim that they do not censor results. Nice to know that they stand up to the government here but not abroad.

The news you knew, yet didn't really know Project Censored has become more and more relevant in our self-censored and compliant media. These are the top ten stories that received very little airplay or no air play at all.
It makes the Baby Jesus cry. . .
posted by mk1gti
on Jan 28, 2006 -
28 comments

Don't be evil. Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market. Google will roll out a new version of its search engine bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," on Wednesday.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood
on Jan 24, 2006 -
93 comments

Microsoft takes down chinese language blog critical of Beijing This was on the global (.com) site not a .cn site. Meaning this policy affects all Chinese speakers all over the world, including in the US. Interestingly, the pressure seems to have been commercial, as a commercial Chinese blogging company took Microsoft to task for allowing the commentary. Is globalization exporting censorship?
posted by delmoi
on Jan 3, 2006 -
70 comments

Every weekly meeting causes me to feel ashamed. I listen to people lie. I listen to people lie shamelessly and authoritatively. And you cannot refute them. You cannot stand up and say, "You are lying. What are you lying?"
Tolerating lies is regarded as wisdom. Those who are anxious to speak the truth are regarded as being victims of too much hormone. People make fun of themselves this way, and then wisely say: "Those naive actions will only bring even worse consequences. Be mature, be rational, be practical. Research more issues and talk less about theories."

The Parents Television Council has released their list of the top 10 worst shows for family viewing. The Fox network led the way with six of the ten shows, Family Guy, American Dad, The War at Home, The O.C., That 70s Show and Arrested Devlopment. The PTC also released a top-nine list of shows that are family friendly (they claim they couldn't find a 10th show to complete the list), leading the way is Three Wishes and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. They also accuse Fox of being deceptive with their marketing of their Sunday night lineup, and using cartoons to pedal the "filth" to children.
posted by SirOmega
on Oct 19, 2005 -
56 comments

What you watch Tucked deep inside a massive bill designed to track sex offenders and prevent children from being victimized by sex crimes is language that could put many Hollywood movies in the same category as hardcore, X-rated films. The provision added to the Children's Safety Act of 2005 would require any film, TV show or digital image that contains a sex scene to come under the same government filing requirements that adult films must meet.
posted by halekon
on Oct 12, 2005 -
41 comments

Last week, a woman was forced off a Southwest Airlines flight for wearing a t-shirt. The shirt in question bore the phrase "Meet the F*ckers" and an image of US President Bush, VP Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. The passenger, Lorrie Heasley, refused to remove it after other passengers complained. Apparently "Southwest rules filed with the FAA say they can remove a passenger that is offensive, abusive, disorderly or violent or for clothing that is "lewd, obscene, or patently offensive," but the airline says the curse (not the political message) led to her being asked to leave. Ms. Heasley is now speaking with the ACLU to see if she can initiate a lawsuit, but the NYTimes checked with experts in constitutional law and they don't think she has a case.

Once again, it's "Banned Books Week" in which we celebrate those books which have been challenged to be removed from public and school libraries. Although the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that banning books from public access was unconstitutional, the effort remains. We can at least take comfort in knowing that, although opinions may vary, Americans don't actually burn books they hate.

Camouflage Comics [requires Flash] - an exploration of the issues of censorship, dictatorship, human rights and the legacy of the Argentinian "Dirty War", the 1976-1983 military junta's repression and extermination of dissidents (when 10,000 to 30,000 Argentinians were tortured and "disappeared"). Produced at the Jan van Eyck Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht, the project presents striking comics and illustrations made between 2002 and 2005 by contemporary Argentinian artists, as well as text essays on the production of comics and cartoons during the dictatorship era.
posted by funambulist
on Sep 26, 2005 -
2 comments

Despite our predominantly post-modern society in Canada, there are still pockets of ignorance and intolerance. The City of Surrey a very suburban suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, is pretty much the capital of Canada when it comes to this.
A high school (ages 13-18) was rehearsing to perform "The Laramie Project" - a play about the murder of an American student Matthew Shephard (who was gay) and tolerance when the Surrey School Board pulled the plug on it. The play had recently been performed in a high school in a smaller, but less rednecky suburb, Mission.
This is the same school board that tried to ban two excellent books teaching children tolerance for their friends that may have two dads or two mums. The ban was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Perhaps a play of this nature is appropriate for high school students? Whaddya think?
posted by SSinVan
on Sep 22, 2005 -
65 comments

The FBI has issued the first demand for library records under the Patriot Act. The library in question is somewhere in Bridgeport, CT. The ACLU is seeking an emergency court order to lift the FBI gag order, but they've been instructed by the gag to keep the person whose library records being sought (i.e., their client) a secret. What the ACLU has revealed is that the client is a member of the American Library Association (clearly, a front for terrorism). If any MeFites are interested in digging up additional details on this and start making calls, here's a good place to start. What indeed would the FBI consider so threatening?
posted by ed
on Aug 26, 2005 -
57 comments

"The explosion of suggestive images [in Chinese media and art] is partly a reflection of changes in Chinese society -- many sociologists say China is in the midst of a sweeping sexualrevolution -- and partly due to market reforms...The government has not given the press free rein to publish material with sexual themes, but the way censorship is carried out means that some media outlets can get away with quite a lot. Rather than issue top-down decrees, Beijing's censors primarily react to existing material, so websites, whose content is easily removable, and publications far from Beijing, which are less likely to attract censors' attention, can take more chances. Still, articles on topics such as 'China's Janet Jackson,' a TV star who has twice revealed a breast in public, and the incidence of erectile dysfunction among China's urban men are now common in the national media."
posted by JPowers
on Jul 30, 2005 -
14 comments

Walmart vs the free press again... other examples: the book mentioned in this thread is no longer available. This and that and the other thread too. Another point in a pattern of steadily increasing restriction of the press by this taxpayer funded mega -corp? Or simply a case of private enterprise making decisions in its own interest - nothing to see here, move along...
posted by dorcas
on Jul 27, 2005 -
118 comments

Articles of Faith "By inviting articles that covered different sides of disputed issues, Father Reese helped make America Magazine a forum for intelligent discussion of questions facing the Catholic Church and the country today."
ThomasJ. Reese's policy -- to present both sides of the discussion -- apparentlly "did not sit well with Vatican authorities". Reese, a Jesuit and a political scientist, had made a point of publishing both sides of the debate on a range of subjects, some of them quite delicate for a Catholic magazine -- gay priests, stem-cell research, the responsibility of Catholic politicians confronting laws on abortion and same-sex unions and a Vatican document (the Dominus Iesus declaration) which outlined the idea that divine truth is most fully revealed in Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular.
Reese, who had described last month the Vatican as behaving like the cranky owner of a good restaurant, resigned yesterday as editor of the magazine. More inside.
posted by matteo
on May 9, 2005 -
17 comments

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